Deceased prisoner property report from Buchenwald concentration camp

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The collection of documents from Buchenwald has one variation of a deceased prisoner property report. This was a wider document which noted the prisoner’s category. In this case it was signed by a block elder who was referred to as the Blockführervertr[eter] (“representative of the block leader”). Four possible prisoner categories can be listed on the document: Schutzhaft (Sch. – “protective custody”), Arbeitsscheu-Reich (ASR – “Reich work-shirker”), Berufsverbrecher (BV – “career criminal”) or Sicherheitsverwahrung (SV – “preventive custody”).

The collection of documents from Buchenwald has one variation of a deceased prisoner property report. This was a wider document which noted the prisoner’s category. In this case it was signed by a block elder who was referred to as the Blockführervertr[eter] (“representative of the block leader”). Four possible prisoner categories can be listed on the document: Schutzhaft (Sch. – “protective custody”), Arbeitsscheu-Reich (ASR – “Reich work-shirker”), Berufsverbrecher (BV – “career criminal”) or Sicherheitsverwahrung (SV – “preventive custody”).

Questions and answers

The ITS e-Guide distinguishes between main cards and variations. The reason for this is that there are sometimes different versions of a single type of document that can vary significantly.

The documents referred to as main cards in the e-Guide are standard documents that were used especially frequently in the concentration camps and about which a good deal of information is available. The ITS archive also holds variations of these documents, however, which served the exact same purpose as the corresponding main cards, but which look different. There are various reasons for this: Some concentration camps used their own individually produced cards instead of the standard versions. In many other cases, individual cards and forms were used before the concentration camp administration later insisted on the use of standardized pre-printed forms.

If you have any additional information about this document or any other documents described in the e-Guide, we would appreciate it very much if you could send your feedback to eguide(at)its-arolsen.org. The document descriptions are updated regularly – and the best way for us to do this is by incorporating the knowledge you share with us.

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